Modern telephone operator assistance systems automatically perform many of the functions required for completing customer-dialed operator assistance calls. The operation assistance system includes a switching network, a control processor and one or more operator positions. The processor typically accumulates data concerning a call and controls the display of that data on a terminal at the operator position. Using this data about the current state of a call, an attending operator communicates via a voice connection with the customer and keys additional call control and call record data into the terminal. The display control and call control data is sent between the operator position and the control processor used to control the switching network. In response to the keyed control data, the control processor effects call configuration changes, such as a call connection or disconnection, in the switching network, and records billing and other call record data.
Operator positions are connected to customers over a voice path. In the prior art, display and control data has been sent over a separate path between the operator position and the control processor. The use of such a separate control path makes it costly to locate operators far away from the switching network and control processor. Further, provision of modern operator assistance services frequently requires that the operators have access to remote data bases. Access to such data bases is provided over these separate paths via the processor of the operator switch, or via separate paths between the operator positions and the data bases. Such arrangements are slow and inefficient, and place a large and increasing data processing load on the control processor, limiting its capacity to serve operator assistance calls, or, alternatively, are inefficient in their use of data transmission facilities.
A recognized problem in the prior art, therefore, is the expense of locating operators far from their associated operator assistance systems and of locating small teams of operators in different remote sites. A further problem of the prior art is that no good arrangement exists for permitting operators to access a variety of data bases.